If I Were President

It humbles me everyday. Just being here, with so much love and affection and care and connection and gratitude, it makes you feel so completely humble.
I've gotten the President thing a couple of times here, from different people along the way. Here's the general format: (In Spanish) What are you studying? Political Science. Where? Harvard. Oh, wow, I'm talking with the next President of the United States.
And scene.
But today came the most sincerest of those pleas. From my host mom. We were sitting at lunch, with her cousins, talking about Peruvian food, how handsome I was (one of the cousins, 50, wanted me bad), my time in Peru, and it was great. Then Elisa, my mom, brought up for no reason that I could be President. I try to take it as a compliment and shrug it off, but this time, it just came out, how adorable and kind I am, charismatic, my intelligence, dedication, how large of a reach my soul has.
It humbles me everyday.
I went back to visit Gustavo today, at Villa el Salvador, my first school. It's all coming full-circle, I guess you could say, with my returning to the beginning just at the time when I am about to leave.
Gustavo was Gustavo, but he was also tired. He didn't want to work today, just play. It's so hard to keep a perfect view of things, because when you do, you're living in fantasty land. Or candy land. Or playing Candyland. Can I just say what's on the tip of everyone's tongue: most underrated game ever, right. Come on.
Not everything is perfect. Okay, that came out horribly. How my english is starting to fail me. But I mean that you have to work through the bad, you have to re-dedicate yourself when it' hardest, because that's when you grow.
It happens slowly. I was dissapointed, he wasn't the same, well he was, but it wasn't perfect. So I sat there. And thought. And then pushed myself a little more. Give a little more, stay focused, because I have to. There's nothing more to it than that. And we got through the lesson. And I carried him back to his room. And I said goodbye for the last time. And I hope he remembers me. I hope that I've helped. I hope that one day, I can do more.
As I walked back, it was recess. Kids climbing on top of me, me lifting them high into the air, staring at their faces, so calm in their euphoria. Just to be high, to be held, in the air, flying, that's all they want. To know that someone is there for them, to play with, to be there, nothing more. I looked into this one small boy's face, and his eyes shone so bright. I had to catch myself form holding him there to long, there was just something there, in this quiet boy that I found in the back of the line, too shy to come forward to be thrown in the air. As my host mom told me in my first e-mail with her, Peru has magic in its borders.
The key is to unlock it. To find it. And maybe I have. To do this thing, this thing so small and miniscule, with the greatest of love, maybe that is it. To be it and nothing more.
I walked back into the room, and sat down with Axel. I asked him to be my teacher, because I don't know anything about the letter M. He was so excited, he's so smart, correcting me, helping me, so eloquent, too. We sat there with my boss, and just worked, and played. And everything came back down to earth. But it did not do so in the melancholy way, it just came back to Peru. To me being here. To doing anything I can do to help these kids, these parents, these communities. To me being here and loving this experience, what it has given me, what I feel everyday, and how joyous everything truly is. Axel put on my jacket. He looked like a man. He smiled, and I did just the same.
I was talking with Bradford about this the other day. I've spent some time here in Peru not thinking, but remembering. Trailing over the events and trips of my life like a scroll, checking at each one how I felt, where I was, what I did, who I was with. I realize more and more how truly lucky I am. How much I have been given, how joyous the time that my life has been.
From remembering hiking in the moutains with my sister, mom, and dad, only going up if we could buy all the junk food we wanted. We stopped every five feet to have a snack, and by the end, we were sick, but so happy as well. We would come back to our house, at Graves Moutain, and look out over the field in our backyard, at the horses far away, the giant tree, and we would smile.
To Russia with my sister. To the road trip with my best friends. Looking out over the Grand Canyon and realizing that everything was beautiful. And smiling.
To Lady and Sons, to White Castle in New Jersey, to Relay for Life this year with Team Extreme, to my first Harvard-Yale, to getting into Harvard, to seeing the look on my grandmother's face when I dedicated my award at the Norfolk Sports' Club to her. To going on the field with my dad after the 49ers NFC Championship game to just touch the turf. And smiling ear to ear.
It was the same smile that brings me back to Axel. That brings me back to this place, where I have found so much inside of me. To this place that is now my home, that I feel so joyous in. Where I realize that everything is beautiful and I realize that my purpose in life is to help people.
To this place where I am just smiling all the time, feeling joy in the same way I've felt it so many times before. It's amazing that only now I put it all together.
I feel home here. After coming back from Chile, visiting Alejandro, my dove, for the weekend to shred, enjoy Santiago, and teach the magic of gnar to all those who can understand it's power, I missed it.
I missed my home, my family, Maria and her care, her laugh, my kids at the orphanage, Peruvians and their kindness, the most delicious food in the world (btw, Chillean food sucks, from the mouth of Ale, not me).
And I felt home. Carlos and I discussed this very thing as we rode in our cab back from the airport. Chile was an adventure, we'll remember it forever, but not because it was Chile. It was becasue we stayed in Argentina (whaddup Niko!) Thursday night, didn't arrive in Chile until 5 PM Friday, got stuck in a blizzard at the ski resort, almost fell of the cliff in our bus, got stuck in traffic on the moutain for 6 hours because of a wreck, shredded our kicker we made by the side of the bus when it wasn't moving for 3 hours, barely making our flight back on Sunday morning. And after this adventure, we came back, and we came back home. And we'll remember the trip because of that. We realized we had a home, and how truly special that is.
And as Carlos and I, later that day, ran through the middle of Peru's independence day parade, chasing the fireworks that were going off two streets ahead of us, as we were running in the darkness, as the ski was ablaze, we laughed. We yelled. "Viva el Peru." We looked at eachother. We were joyous, we had found a home, we felt so great. We watched the fireworks go off over Parque Kennedy, to conclude the parade in all its glory. And our journey, in many ways was complete. We yelled some more. We laughed one more time.
And we smiled.

PS: If I were President, and do away with taxes.
Then create super-taxes.
And give all the money to Gustavo.